


solus, ad nauseam

by magesamell



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brooding, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Missing Scene, Run On Sentences, angry elf angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1701953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magesamell/pseuds/magesamell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Their collision seems doomed from the start. Too much feeling, and too much thinking -- and too much dreaming.</p><p>Afterwards, Fenris stares in the fire, and listens."</p><p>From "A Bitter Pill" to "Alone"</p>
            </blockquote>





	solus, ad nauseam

**Author's Note:**

> I've been fiddling with this thing for literally a year so I figured I should post it before it never ever sees the light of day. Beware ahead there is much elf pining

Their collision seems doomed from the start. Too much feeling, and too much thinking -- and too much dreaming.

Afterwards, Fenris stares in the fire, and listens.

 

0000

 

There is a voice sounding from the cacophony; distinct in its familiarity and trustworthiness.

It whispers to him.

_It’s better this way._

It’s better if she hates you, loathes you, is so wounded that she’ll never come close again, and will never try to understand, and leaves you be so that you can focus on forgetting her --  forgetting how her hands felt on your face and back and chest -- forgetting how she tasted and how she sighed against your neck and how she looked at you with such easy joy and satisfaction as no one has looked at you before.

After all, Hawke is a mage and mages are dangerous and mages corrupt and if Fenris focuses on this litany he can ignore the burning in his chest.

 _It’s better this way_ , the voice encourages, the only soft thought sliding through his mind.

It’s better with him retreating just as the memories did, washing away from the banks of his mind just as he’d grasped them.

It’s better with his back turned to her, curling into the angry drive that he knows that while not safe, is comfortable and familar and so much less agonzing than whatever he feels around her.

And so he turns and he tells her this was a mistake and he closes his eyes at her broken voice and the feeling of it slides through him, the shallowness of this fragile thing breaking apart. He can hear her hurt and confusion and yes, this is what he had intended. This is good; she will hate him.

 _Hate me_ , he thinks desperately at her, and is prepared to say it, but what comes out instead is--

_“Forgive me.”_

 

0000

 

His mansion is dark and cold and miserable. His bed’s meager blankets are lacking protection against the nighttime chill. But the discomfort is a welcome distraction from his thoughts.

He desperately scours his mind for any remnant of the images that had come to him so briefly, but it is in vain. Any hoped for lost memory is swallowed by the more overpowering memory of her skin on his. That is another torment in of itself. So much he had lost today -- his old life, reclaimed for instant -- and Hawke, naked, staring at him with a sadness older than this night.

She’ll never forgive him.

Fenris sighs. If he is to ever get some proper sleep, it’ll be due to the bottom of a bottle. He rises from his bed and travels downstairs to his stolen winecellar, picking up the first bottle he sees. There, standing barefoot in the dim stone cellar, Fenris pops the cork of the bottle and tips it back against his mouth.

He swallows enough for it to burn going down. Wiping his mouth, he eyes the bottle for a moment. And drinks again. And again, sipping as he walks back upstairs, bracing himself against walls as he goes.

He goes to bed for the third time that night. This time, there are no warm, tousled presences at his side, or bothersome regrets. This time, there is just drink, and oblivion, and if he were more sober, he might be sad at the prospect.

_It’s better this way, this way it’s better, it’s better--_

 

0000

 

The first day is a horrible hangover.

Hawke doesn’t come. No one does.

It is not unusual. He draws the shades and lies all day.

 

0000

 

The second day Fenris goes out to grocer out of necessity, but quickly returns to the mansion, unwilling to linger anywhere Hawke might go.

Without Hawke’s distraction, he finds himself rather bored. He looks at the lended volumes on the desk, thinking of maybe practicing his reading, and suddenly the sight of them incapacitates him.

Hawke will never forgive him. She’ll never return for another lesson. He’ll be stuck at this juvenile level _forever_ without her assistance.

He can’t bear to touch them. He can’t bear to look at them.

He opens another bottle.

 

0000

 

The third day is another hangover.

He lies in bed, too miserable to get himself some water.

His front door opens -- he recognizes the sound from a distance. His heart jumps in his throat.

_Hawke?_

But no -- Fenris also recognizes the sound of the intrudor’s footsteps climbing the stairs.

The bedroom door opens, and Fenris says, “Leave me.”

“No can do, Broody. It’s Wicked Grace night, and you still owe me three sovereigns. Unless you have that coin upfront, you have to play someone for it.”

“Leave, dwarf.”

The footsteps come closer; and his intruder stands at Fenris’ bedside.

“Look, elf, you can’t hole yourself up in here for the rest of your days.”

Fenris grunts. He can and he will, if he likes. He’ll prove how resolute he can be.

Then Varric says, “Hawke won’t be there.”

Fenris sighs, and rises.

 

0000

 

The Hanged Man is the same as ever, bright and loud and thick with bodies reeking of alcohol and sweat. This night, it is just Fenris, Varric, Donnic, and Merill. Hawke, apparently, had taken Anders, Isabela, and Aveline out on some excursion. No one mentions the unsuality of this.

Isabela must be pitching a fit, Fenris thinks grimly, and in another mood, might have laughed.

He loses more coin and drinks a lot of bad ale. The men are tight-lipped, focusing on the game. No one mentions Hawke but Merrill, who tells Fenris that she went hat-shopping with her and Isabela yesterday. Apparently, they had bought twelve hats, all with Hawke’s coin.

In his tipsy state of mind, Fenris thinks bitterly that of _course_ Hawke is handling this better. On the whole, collecting hats seemed much healthier than collecting empty wine bottles.

He takes another sip.

 

0000

 

The fourth day is a hangover in Varric’s suite. As soon as he is steady, Fenris walks back to his mansion.

He doesn’t remember much after that, except when Isabela comes.

“Heard you’ve been drunk out of your mind all this week,” she greets him cheerfully. Before he can say anything, she adds “I also heard you fucked it up with Hawke.”

Fenris closes his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sweet thing,” Isabela says, in the soft tone she sometimes uses, “she’ll forgive you. You just need to hike up to her place, tell her you’re a miserable sod without her, and strip to the waist. Hawke’ll do the rest.”

Fenris shakes his head. He looks up, and Isabela is biting her lip -- as if worried. He hasn’t seen her wear that look many times. “Leave,” he tells her. “I dont-- I can’t-- Leave.”

She doesn’t. “No,” she says, with a sad edge to her smile, “Miserable sods need company.”

They get blazingly drunk. Fenris overshares. Isabela kisses him on the cheek and steals the Amell crest and long, red ribbon Hawke sometimes wore in her hair. She returns to him, her swagger half drunk, half victory, and he smiles for the first time in days. He fastens the crest at his hip, and Isabela ties the favor around his wrist with quick fingers. When he looks up at her, she is smiling too, a dark and sad thing in this dark and sad night.

“I guess this means you’re staying,” she whispers.

He nods.

The pirate mirrors him, bobbing her head, looking down -- away --

“Good,” Isabela says. “She needs someone to stay.”

He marvels, even through the stupor of drink, how it is he that is so faithful, he who let his fear conquer and drive him from her side.

They fall asleep on the cold floor of his usual room in Danarius’ mansion. When he wakes, he is alone, and groggy. The shock of red at his wrist steadies him, and he thinks about staying and promises and missed opportunities.

 

0000

 

In time, Hawke comes. It is a blessing he is neither drunk or hungover.

Hawke looks much the same as ever; robed and ready. She regards him solemnly from the bottom of the stairs. He remembers the last time she looked at him, and he compares the two in his mind, catalogs the differences.

Last time, she’d been naked. This time, she is armored, draped with robes and pouches and her shoulder guard.

Last time, the hurt burned in her eyes. This time, she is guarded, but he thinks he might see the same hesitant sadness pluck at her lips.

“Aveline is busy with the Guard,” Hawke informs him with cool detachment. “I need a swordsman. Will you come?”

It sounds rehearsed. Fenris realized she must have done so. He curses himself for not doing the same. 

He stares at the curve of her neck, remembering the feel of it, how he’d tucked his head there as they laid. He missed her terribly. He wants to tell her so.

“Fenris?” she asks, and the sound of his name from her lips makes him want to scream out an apology, to beg her forgiveness, to disparage her until she would run off from him and never return.

Instead he says, “I will come.”

 

0000

 

The others, of course, notice the difference in his armor. Isabela meets his eyes with something like reassurance. Varric is the fourth that afternoon. His eyes widen and wisely, says nothing. Clever dwarf.

Hawke is silent, and doesn’t speak or look at him, but he does catch her eyeing his wrist. He tries to shift discreetly, tries to give her a better view. _See_ , he thinks at her. _Behold. Know. Understand._

The voice reminds him, _she hates you._   

In time, inevitably, everyone catches sight. Merrill lets out a little breath as she does a double-take, says leadingly, “Hawke, did you know--” and is silenced with a look from Fenris. Aveline narrows her eyes and gives a him a stare composed of equal parts confusion and concern. In a private moment, she mirrors Isabela, and says in what she probably thinks is not a patronizing tone that he really ought to visit Hawke.

When the mage notices, his face screws up with digust and throws a glare at him. In one cave excursion on the Wounded Coast, he is confronted when Isabela and Hawke leave them alone to scourge the area of chests and booty.

“You must be some sort of unfeeling monster,” the mage begins quietly. “To leave her and then dare to make this bizarre declaration.”

Fenris closes his eyes.

“Desist, abomination. You know nothing.”

The mage is right on one point, though. It is a declaration. A promise. He cannot leave her twice. He will follow her, until she tires of him.

In this way he will punish himself. In this way he will redeem himself.

 _You will always be unworthy_ , the voice tells him.

 

0000

 

Her voice is the worst. It is a punishment several times over, a haunting reminder at the most inconvenient times -- interrogations and battle and over Wicked Grace. She speaks, and he heards the inflection of her voice as he touched her. She had said his name, in a moan and a breath and he can _hear_ it, every time she sighs or draws out a vowel and he’s lost.

Because she doesn’t say his name like that anymore, not the way she did, not the way she sounded, consumed by desire -- desire for him

Now Hawke nods curtly and says _Fenris_ or furrows her brows and drawls irritably _Fenris_ or yells for him in battle, for back up and in anger and occasionally in worry --

 _Fenris_!

And sometimes the inflection is so close it makes him sick. So close, but not quite.

Something inside him hums at the pain. _Good_ , the voice says.

Fenris thinks bitterly that if he had simply stayed that night, he could’ve kept her up every night for these past years, he could’ve made her say his name over and over.

If only he hadn’t fled. If only he’d been stronger. If only he’d explained it better, if only she understood.

 _She never will, because you won’t allow her_ , the voice reminds him.

What is more abominable is that he’s started to catalogue her touch now that he is never on the receiving end of it. He hadn’t fully comprehended before how tactile Hawke was, how often she grasped hands with Merill, patted Aveline’s hair with affection, or slung an arm along Isabela’s shoulders. Hawke bumps her hip to Varric’s shoulder and leaves her hands to linger at the mage’s feathers. Hawke doesn’t notice the touches, but the abomination _does_ , and preens like a cat indulged with cream.

Fenris closes his eyes.

 _She is not yours to have_ , the voice whispers.

He thumbs the now-fraying favor around his wrist.

_Just because you are hers, does not mean she is yours._

What a fool he is, becoming infatuated with a mage, allowing himself to become bound to one so inevitably dangerous. How dare he feel so safe around her; how dare he become used to this walking contradiction?

How dare he reject her, when she and her little group of abominations and refugees and thieves are the closest things he might claim for friends; when that quiet night in her estate brought him the closest to what he might call bliss?

He feels the absence of her touch like a brand. And so, utterly devoid of hope, Fenris watches her coo over a hat in the window with Isabela, and remembers the way she had encircled his wrists with her hands, how she’d placed his hands just under her breasts, leaning into his directed touch. And he, like a slave shackled, had complied, and how she had keened, and --

The laughter stalls on her face as she turns, meets his gaze. Shame rips through him and she looks away, and he misses her bitterly, and he is so undeserving, and so foolish, and she will be the absolute death of him.

 

0000

 

It is a mundane day in Hightown market that disrupts their miserable stagnant. They are alone, about to walk down to Lowtown to fetch Isabela and Merrill, but have stopped at Hawke’s request to peruse some merchant’s set of knives. Hawke is holding one of the blades, turning her hand, watching the early sun scattering light along its side. He is watching her.

Out of nowhere, out of five and a half weeks of pained but peaceable silence, Hawke asks him, “Have you been reading?”

He has, badly. But before he can answer her, she blurts, “I could come by, tomorrow, to continue lessons. If you like.” Her voice is wavering in a way Fenris has never heard before.

She isn’t looking at him, and her dark hair is obscuring her expression, but it’s maybe for the better, because Fenris doesn’t even now what he feels, except --

“Yes,” he says quickly. “I would like that.”

Something is screaming at him, something like _mages_ and _dangerous_ and _mistake_.

He ignores it. He wants this too much.

Coward and fear and pain and _no_. Not now.

Slowly, Hawke puts down the blade and looks at him. The smallest of smiles. Then, she turns --

“We should move on.”

That night, he walks her home and stands awkwardly in the threshold of the estate. They confirm the time of her visit the next day and he bids her a hesistant good night and promise to see her tomorrow. He has a small jealous moment when he notices a bouquet of white lilies sitting behind her. Feeling guilty and ashamed, he leaves, that old insecure voice flaring up, the one he finally recognizes as his own.

She owes you nothing, you have no claim, move on move on move _past_ \--

Despite this -- today has made him hopeful, and he can’t bear how right it feels. When he gets home he picks up one of the forgotten volumes, relishes its weight. Tomorrow. _Tomorrow_.

 

0000

 

They miss their lesson.

Hawke cradles her mother on the floor of the filthy foundry cellar, pale as ash and covered in more than her own blood.

Aveline calls the guard. Isabela scours out the lair, collecting the things of those deceased. Fenris can do nothing.

At the estate, Aveline and Isabela help Hawke bathe. It is Fenris’ duty to inform the servants. Orana gasps and flees, the dwarf’s jaw drops and excuses himself. His son, concerned for his well-being, follows.

Fenris sits alone in the darkening atrium.

Eventually, Isabela comes down, but with nothing to say. She meets his gaze for only a second before departing.

Aveline comes a little later, looking too exhausted. She seems unsurprised he is still waiting here. The guard-captain sighs, and he hears all the grief in it. She knew Leandra Hawke, too, he remembers, they had been friends.

“Go to her or don’t, Fenris,” Aveline says, “But don’t waste her time.”

The guard-captain leaves. He stands.

 

0000

 

Hawke is still pale, and small, and dressed in the casual robes he had only seen once before.

She is staring, tearlessly, at nothing. She looks nothing like herself.

“I do not know what to say, but I am here.”

Her eyes flutter closed. “Say something,” she pleads, quietly.

He sits down next to her, more hesitant than he has ever been in his remembered life. “They say death is a journey. Does that help?”

She looks at him them, with eyes so bitter and a mirthless smile that he knows the depths of his failure.

In front of him, her face fractures, and then she is weeping openly, leaning toward him and he catches her, holds her, and does not let go.

 

0000

 

Eventually the fragile peace of the city shatters, and it is of course Hawke who emerges stronger from the flames, and even he marvels at her as she is crowned Champion. What might she do?

Hawke does as much and as little as she can; loathing politics but love-starved and filled up with a compulsion of helping, doing, acting.

He doesn’t see her much for the first few months. She is busy with the Seneschal and the Knight-Captain and with nobles and parties and correspondence. He hires himself out to the reconstruction force and as a hired sword. He writes to one of the contacts Varric has secured for him; asks about a red-haired elf. One night at Wicked Grace where Hawke is conspiciously absent, he overhears Anders telling Isabela about how he is concerned about the various hoops Hawke will have to jump through to stay a free mage.

Fenris wonders at that, having never considered reknown to present such danger. He wonders at himself for not realizing it sooner.

He thinks -- mother and father, sister dead, brother estranged, a constant walking target, subject to violation from the Fade at any moment  -- it is better to be out of her life. She does not need his complications.

No matter what he feels.

But soon Hawke is asking for his blade, and then to resume their lessons -- at last --  and then she asks him for his opinion on dress color, and material, grasping strips of silks and tulle.

“It’s for -- an event -- and I’ve little idea of what _I_ even favor--”

“Are you asking me about fashions?”

“There’s no need to sneer, Fenris. I just--” She searches for something witty to say, and falters, pressing the palm of the hand not gripping samples to her temple. “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Hawke looks adrift, an echo of how she was the night they found the basement of the Lowtown foundry, and he speaks -- just as he did then --  because he must --

“I always preferred you in red.”

Hawke’s palm falls away. She peers at him, and her mouth curls with amusement. “Red,” she repeats, and inspects the red sample, and he catchs her eyes darting to the favor at his wrist.

 

0000

 

There is that moment, and a hundred others. They do not stop hurting, but there is a peace there never was before, an ease captured that hadn’t existed even before they laid. He thinks -- hopes -- knows, that he comprehends her grief, and she his, and takes comfort in that. 

In time he stops requiring her assistance in reading, and sets out on a journey of literature, accepting Varric and Hawke’s suggestions and ignoring Isabela’s.

Hawke still comes every week. Sometimes more than that. They drink and converse about what he is reading and what she is reading. Poetry, and dull correspondance.

The visits grows longer and later and in time he begins walking her home. In time she begins to take his arm, in time she leans on him, and he her. In time he lingers at her door, relishing her goodbye smile.

In time he realizes that he adores her, and has adored her such as she is for almost six years. It is true he didn’t always know it; for too long he listened to his own traitorous reasoning. But now he knows himself better, and Hawke too. He knows that there is a simplicity between the two of them that is precious, and deserving of protection.

But -- but, he is not free to tell her these things. Not when so much of him is still owned by another. Not when any day the demon could be knocking at his door. Not when he was such a fool.

But Hawke leans into him, and Hawke smiles, and Hawke laughs, and there might be hope. Someday. _Someday_.

 

0000

 

When his sister comes, Hawke comes with him when he goes to her, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be by his side.

In retrospect, it seems equally natural the encounter is bloodied by betryal.

 

0000

 

He rages and spits because Danarius is dead and his sister is a traitor and his life is destroyed. He’s choking on rising ashes and the smell of lyrium and burning flesh and blood.The vile hatred inside of him is not quenched but spilling over and he can’t believe how utterly hopeless this had been. His disatisfaction and humilation is growing and he is so alone in all of this and that is when Hawke ventures like a broken light and says--

“I’m here, Fenris.”

Hawke’s gaze is steady and fearful. She is terrifed for him, but stands unbowed, as she always has -- in the face of all his demons, his prejudice, his anger -- even when it was directed at her.

And in that moment he is sure that he loves her, and she should know this, for she deserves many things.

Fenris promises himself he will tell her, but not here, not -- _now_.

Not with the blood of his past still smearing her cheeks.

Not when his past is still cooking him rotten.

 

0000

 

There is no peace, after. He cannot comprehend the sour taste of revenge, the emptiness it has left with him.

Maybe he needed this. Maybe he’d needed his fingers phasing through flesh and crushing arteries and the blood of the soon dead spurting and his tormentor's eyes fading fast into nothingness.

But he’d also needed Hawke. He could not bear the thought of living without her. And for seven years he has purposefully distanced himself when he could have accepted what she freely gave. She had offered him sweetness and he had knocked it away in favor of the poison.

What a fool he has been.

 

0000

 

When she tells him he must decide what he wants, the most immediate thought is her. And so Fenris ventures, purposefully, hesitantly -- “We...have never discussed what happened three years ago.”

Hawke had not been expecting that. He watches her countenance falter. “You didn’t want to talk about it,” she says, carefully, neutrally. 

He wishes to, now. If he knows anything, he knows this.

Fenris tells her that he would stay, if he had the chance. He asks her for forgiveness. He steps toward her.

This time it feels less like a collision and more like a choice.

 

0000

 

Afterwards, Hawke’s smile is cast in shadow and light.

“Would you like to know a secret?” she asks, lips curling.

He runs one hand down her arm, then threads his fingers through hers. “If you wish to give one, then certainly.”

“You,” she starts, and then bites her lip. Hesistance, then, “Your hair is prettier than mine. It’s abominable."

It’s a transparent misdirection, but Fenris forgives her. They have time. Now he smiles, leans closer.

“Would you have me shave it so that your beauty may reign supreme?”

Hawke laughs. “You’d do that for me?”

Fenris meets her questioning gaze and tells her honest truth.

“Hawke, I am yours.”

 

 


End file.
